When it was time, the old woman lay down on the forest floor. She furred with moss; she became the ages of the trees. Each year, new shawls of orange leaves, flowing gowns of snow. She lay waiting still. In all her life, never a sound had crossed through her lips. She spent her days sweeping corners clean of unwantedness; any feather on the floor was hers to keep. Children whispered tales—she was a witch; when she had gone, she’d been devoured, frightened rabbit, by an owl. Never a footstep troubled the ground where tree roots held her close.

How achingly

long she waited,

her stories

red in her mouth.

One day a murmuration

rose out of the trees,

crackling the sky, blackening

the forest in sound.

Spotting her at last

one drifted down,

perched on her breast,

and fed her as its own.

“My dearest

uncanny

creature—

Tell me—”